Coastal Voices: Thinking women look past reproductive rights

Regarding John Merte’s April 10 letter (“Supervisor candidate has implausible plan for county”) in which he criticizes the Triplicate’s coverage of candidate Bill Gray’s speech to the GOP women:

I doubt that a lunch meeting with Supervisor Martha McClure speaking, held by a Democratic women’s group, would go without notice by this newspaper. And I am sure the article would be all about Martha’s views and be above the fold on the front page.

But, this is not the real reason for my writing, and I write this as a
concerned mother and grandmother, not necessarily as president of Del
Norte County Republican Women Federated.

President Obama’s Good
Friday economic summit for women evolved into another discussion on
women’s reproductive rights. Why? Because after telling women they
should have a right to join the board at Augusta, there wasn’t much else
to talk about.

In the last three years, unemployment for women
has risen. In the last three years, poverty for women has risen. One in
six Americans is in poverty, most of them women. So, he changes the
subject to women’s reproductive rights. Does he really think that’s all
we know?

Lets start with Ms. Fluke. She made a big splash one
day, demanding to testify before a congressional committee that was not
discussing anything that pertained to her. So she, with the help of U.S.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, then spoke before another committee, convened just
for her benefit.

She spoke of her enrollment at Georgetown
University Law School, a Catholic University. She spoke of the need for
the university to provide $1,000 per year in free birth control pills,
in the name of women’s health.

Birth control pills and condoms can
easily be obtained at free clinics all over the D.C. area, or at
Walmart for about $10 per month. Knowing this, what else does she
demand. Abortion? The morning after pill? Why didn’t she and her
cronies go to Harvard or Yale, good non-Catholic schools? Was the plan
to undermine the religious rights of a Catholic institution? Undermine
the First Amendment to the Constitution?

I was recently told by a
family member that she “just wanted government (meaning Republicans) to
stay out of her reproductive rights,” but at the same time she wants the
government to pay for and support them. You can’ have it both ways,
girls. And with Obamacare you will have a government committee deciding
those rights.

To sum it up. This whole thing, women’s rights, is just a ploy to get women’s votes. Why would any thinking woman fall for it?

Thinking
women are more concerned with keeping or finding jobs. Thinking women
are more concerned about paying for gas and groceries. Thinking women
won’t be tricked into ignoring the state of the economy, the destruction
of the family and her American dream!